Hyde (2 page)

She ripped her hand from him, “I don’t get any
of this and by the way I know you never loved me. You left me when
I was eight, with relatives you hated. You barely came to see me.
You've always made me feel as if I were an inconvenience.” Her eyes
burned, “That is not love father.”

She stormed away, ignoring her aching body and
opened the door. Stopping suddenly she saw a tall beautiful girl
with dark blond wavy hair and grey eyes standing in the hall. She
wore high-heeled boots and leather pants with a purple silk blouse.
She looked about Hanna’s age but older somehow, as if life had aged
her using pain. She smiled but Hanna could see there was nothing
inside of her eyes, her smile was a mask.

She walked past Hanna and sat at the chair with
her father, “Do you want her here for it?” She spoke softly.

He nodded, “A promise is a promise.”

She nodded, “It is.”

He looked at Hanna, “I have loved you for
hundreds of years, long before I ever knew you.”

He closed his eyes as the girl took his hands.
She sighed as if a lover caressed her, she inhaled in ecstasy.

Hanna watched as he died in front of her, still
holding the hand of the mysterious young woman.

Tears slipped from her eyes as she shivered,
watching his exhale that seemed to go on for an eternity. It
matched the inhale of the young woman. Hanna gripped the piece of
paper he had given her, it was the last piece of him.

The girl rose looking at Hanna with glowing
steel colored eyes, “Now you see what happens, remember the ancient
reed, ‘Do what ye will but harm none’ and we will never have to
meet like this again young Hyde.”

She was gone from the room before Hanna could
comprehend what had happened, she knew better than to try.

She walked back to his bed and sat in the chair
beside her father gripping the piece of paper. She waited for
something to make sense.

Chapter Two: Dear Diary

“I’m sorry miss, your father was an amazing
man.” She turned to see Roland standing in the hall looking
heartbroken. His lower lip trembled as he spoke, "He will be
missed."

She looked at her father, once more he had aged
in death, but she could see the face that was his. She squeezed his
hand one last time before letting go. She walked to Roland and
murmured, “I’m sorry for your loss. Mine was minimal, I barely knew
him.”

He nodded, looking as if he were going to lose
control any second. “Shall I call and have your things moved here?”
He asked looking hopeful.

She frowned, “Here?”

He nodded, “Yes, the manor is yours now.”

She grimaced, “My father isn’t even gone yet. I
can't stay here.”

He nodded, “The coroner will be here any moment
with an ambulance. The bed will go out with him and the room will
go back to being the storage room.” He continued nodding, “I dare
say miss when you see the study you will want some time to go over
everything.”

The doorbell chimed causing Roland to nod
suddenly, "Please excuse me."

She looked back at her father once more trying
not to remember the good times with him. She wanted to remember how
it felt to hate him. She wanted to let go of the paper and forget
he ever existed.

He had left her all alone.

Hanna walked down the hall to the large over
stocked kitchen and grabbed a glass of water. She wanted to think
about herself, she wanted to know what happened to her. Deep down
she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear the burden of anything
else.

****

She didn’t know how long she had stood in the
kitchen, staring at the cupboards, seeing pictures in the knots and
grain of the wood. When Roland appeared again her feet ached. She
didn’t notice him at first. She didn’t notice the tears that had
streamed her face long enough to soak her shirt. She didn’t notice
the heaving sound her throat made.

She did notice the shapes in the wood grains.
She noticed a man's face laughing-tilting his head back, she
noticed a dove soaring, she noticed a waterfall with logs
below.

“Miss Hanna you need some sleep, your father
always slept for a day or two afterward.”

She nodded, she didn’t know what afterward meant
but she knew she needed sleep.

She let him lead her away. She let him help her
up the huge Gone with the Wind staircase she had loved the first
time she had seen it. She let him tuck her into the giant bed her
father had bought her. She had sworn that she would never sleep in
it only months prior. She had sworn that she would never sleep in
the new house. She never wanted him to know how much she loved the
house. As her face landed softly on the feather pillow sleep took
her, before she stood a chance at arguing with herself.

She slept like the dead do, she dreamt similarly
too. Her dreams were full of shaky images she couldn’t pinpoint and
flashes of faces she knew all too well.

She saw Rebecca, her best friend in all the
world sitting with her. She saw food, a car and a forest. But like
everything else the vision seemed locked to her. It was as if a fog
covered it all, only allowing small pieces to be revealed in a
sudden flash.

As she became less exhausted her mind cleared,
the fog lifted revealing the forest again. It was dark and thick.
She didn’t know the forest, she walked through looking for
something or someone. Her hands scratched moving the heavy
branches, her shirt tore revealing her stomach. She ignored it,
desperate to find something. She looked at her hands as they moved
the branches. Each finger was coated in something thick and red.
She looked again, trying to make her eyes focus but they would
not.

The forest cleared in a small meadow making her
panic. She was not alone, the meadow had someone else in it. She
couldn’t see who the other person was, as they lie on the ground in
an awkward position. She stopped running as she got close, she knew
the shoes, bright green DC runners.

She screamed as she pulled her best friend into
her arms. Thick red streams trickled from her mouth, eyes, ears and
nose. The crimson was shocking against the powdered white skin. Her
dark brown eyes looked up into the canopy above. She lay limp in
Hanna’s arms. Hanna looked on the ground, horrified at the puddle
of blood where her friend had laid. She screamed as loud as she
could. She hugged the bloody body to herself crying for help. The
trees surrounding the meadow seemed to grow into a wall, trapping
her in. She rocked holding her friend and stroking her dark locks
softly.

Suddenly she shot up screaming. She looked at
her surroundings gasping for air. She was alone in her room. Her
face and hair were soaked from the tears running down her cheeks.
She shivered looking around, remembering the events that had taken
place before her wretched sleep. She felt like a child opening a
five thousand-piece puzzle for the first time and sitting on the
ground staring at all the pieces wondering where they all fit. Her
life had fallen apart.

Her door opened quickly, “Miss Hanna are you
alright?” Roland entered looking deeply concerned.

She shook her head, “I don’t know.” She looked
at the bed and frowned, “I need to go home.”

He shook his head, “No that’s impossible. They
did this to you.”

She looked at him puzzled by what he said, but
also frightened he could be right, “When you found me, did you find
my friend?”

His eyes dropped to the floor suddenly, “It
isn’t your fault, you mustn’t feel responsible. Until the elixir is
completed you will not be able to control yourself when you
change.”

Her mind reeled, “What happened to her?”

He smiled, “You need the other answers first,
you can't start on a trail at the end.”

Worry filled her, “I need to know if she is
okay? I dreamt she died in a forest.”

He nodded, “She did.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach, "She
died?"

He held the door open for her, “There are
clothes and towels, shower and change. All shall be revealed in
your fathers study.”

"We need to call the police. Immediately."

His face looked as sickened as she felt, "No
Miss Hanna, they know already. She was found days ago."

"How? How did this happen? I have to get to her
family. Did I do this?" Her breath began to explode inside of her.
The world surrounding her grew hazy.

He shook his head, "You must calm yourself. Most
of all you must read everything Hanna, everything before I can even
come close to that question."

She nodded feeling ill. She knew deep down she
had had something to do with Rebecca’s death. Roland wasn’t telling
her something, she feared that something.

Hanna shower and changed in a trance. She felt
nothing. She knew she was lost in thought and fear. She grew
increasingly afraid she would never come from the numb her heart
seemed to be lost in.

She walked slowly feeling every step of the cold
wooden floor down the stairs to the hard granite main floor.
Unbeknownst too her, her father had planned for every single one of
the footsteps she took.

The study was at the opposite end of the house
to the storage room that had been a make shift bedroom for her
ailing father. It was a massive room with maps and sketches of
people lining the walls. To one side was a huge mahogany desk
covered in hundreds of papers with writing at every angle. The huge
leather chair looked warn but comfortable to sit in.

Roland looked stricken as he held his arm out at
the over sized brown leather chair, “Have a seat.”

She nodded, "Where do I start?”

She looked at the mess the office was. She
wondered how she could be related to a man who kept his things in
such disorder.

Roland turned grabbing a huge pile of journals
from the bureau behind him. He slumped them onto the table in front
of her. She looked at the dust rise from the collection of decrepit
artifacts and sighed, “You want me to read all of these?”

He nodded, “They are the story I cannot tell
you.”

She looked up at his old gentle face. She
pondered his place in it all for a moment before turning back to
the heap of journals.

“They are in chronological order already, top of
the pile is book one.”

She shivered still weak and exhausted, “I cannot
sit here and read for the two days it will take, my family is
probably looking for me. I can't miss Rebecca's funeral. They'll
want to question me. I think I'm a witness.”

Roland looked down at her and shook his head,
“They are not your family firstly and secondly they are not looking
for you my dear, just read.”

She didn’t know what to say. Nothing about the
last twenty-four hours seemed like the real world. She reached and
picked up the first book as Roland left the room.

The writing was her fathers, he spoke of tests
on street cats. Hanna cringed imagining him torturing animals for
science. He seemed like a mad scientist in his writings, too
passionate about finding the answers he sought. The first journal
seemed entirely about his desperate need to create some kind of
formula. It would be an amazing creation. It sounded like it would
transform a man into something more. She neither saw the need nor
the reasoning behind his mad writings. Gasping she looked at the
date of the last Journal entry of the first journal, June 7th 1803.
She closed the book and looked at the cover again. It did seem as
if it were handmade.

She opened the book again and squinted her eyes
shaking her head. She took a deep breath and looked at the date
again. 1803.

She looked up from the book to see Roland
walking into the study with a huge tray.

“1803?”

He put the tray down and nodded, “It gets much
more interesting the further you read. 1803 becomes the least of
the fantastical things you need to understand.”

She took the fresh steaming cup of coffee and
sipped, “How do you know how I like my coffee?”

He smiled, “You’re a teenager, you all like
those two sugar two cream coffees. Only later will you discover
espresso and its need for only steamed milk to make a perfect cup
of coffee.”

She sipped again enjoying it, “I'm not a
teenager, I'm almost nineteen. I don’t think age has anything to do
with liking espresso. I wont ever like it.”

“Wait five years.” He muttered and left the room
silently.

She picked up the second journal. Her father's
writing grew more and more fanatical and impassioned. He wrote of
destroying his lab with fire, in anger. She noted how he wrote only
of his lab work, he seemed to have no life outside of the lab. He
wrote of no women, no friends, no relations. She couldn’t imagine
what his life was like, living in isolation as he had.

Halfway through the third journal something
shifted, she stopped and reread the last few pages to see where the
change took place. He seemed free of his lab, he spoke of people.
He spoke of a woman, a girl named Mary. He seemed to love her. He
went to a ball and danced the night away, with Mary. He was
suddenly free of something.

She read feverishly, as the story began to get
interesting. He had met a man, a young man, who wanted to discuss
his work. His name was Marcus Dragomir, her father noted he was
more than he seemed. He was a young unmarried baron, who had helped
her father finish the formula. He spoke of trials, but never
mentioned animals again.

Her father wrote of a string of murders that
concerned him, people ripped to pieces or trampled within the city
limits of London. Needless to say the third journal had grown
increasingly alluring.

“It’s bed time Miss Hanna, a quarter past one in
the morning.”

She looked up as her eyes focused on Roland
standing in the hall. Suddenly she felt as if she were inside the
story. The Tudor home, the English butler, mysterious journals, a
dead father and a woman who killed him then vanished into thin
air.